He was in many ways a model, law-abiding citizen. But if there was anyone who could get him to cross the line, it was Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist would rather dishonour himself than betray her, which is why he kept repeating to the police: “I assert my right to protect my sources.” No wonder he was unhappy and worried about the consequences. But, like Berger, he had far greater fears for Salander and the boy than for their own situation.
“How’s it going?” she asked, after watching him for a while.
“What?... Well... O.K. How was it out there?”
“I made up the beds and put food in the fridge.”
“Good. And the neighbours didn’t see you?”
“There wasn’t a soul there.”
“Why are they taking so long?” he said.
“I just don’t know, but I’m worried sick.”
“Let’s hope they’re resting at Lisbeth’s.”
“Let’s hope so. What else did you find out?”
“Quite a bit. But...” Blomkvist trailed off.
“Yes?’
“It’s just that... it feels as if I’m being thrown back in time, going back to places I’ve been to before.”
“You’ll have to explain better,” she said.
“I will...” Blomkvist glanced at his computer screen. “But first I have to keep on digging. Let’s speak later,” he said, and so she left him and got her things to drive home, although she would be ready to stay with him at a second’s notice.
Chapter 20
The night turned out to be calm, alarmingly calm, and at 8.00 in the morning a brooding Bublanski stood facing his team in the meeting room. Having kicked out Faste, he felt reasonably sure that he could talk freely again. At least he felt safer in here with his colleagues than at his computer, or on his mobile.
“You all appreciate how serious the situation is,” he said. “Confidential information has been leaked. One person is dead as a result. A small boy’s life is in danger. In spite of immense efforts we still don’t know how this happened. The leak could have been at our end, or at Säpo, or at Oden’s Medical Centre, or in the group around Professor Edelman, or from the boy’s mother and her partner, Lasse Westman. We know nothing for certain, and therefore we have to be extremely circumspect, paranoid even.”
“We may also have been hacked or phonetapped,” Modig said. “We seem to be dealing with criminals whose command of new technologies is far beyond anything we’ve seen before.”
“Very true,” Bublanski said. “We need to take precautions at every level, not say anything significant relating to this investigation — or to any other — over the telephone, no matter how highly our superiors rate our new mobile-phone system.”
“They think it’s great because it cost so much to install,” Holmberg said.
“Maybe we should also be reflecting a little on our own role,” Bublanski said, ignoring him. “I was just talking to a gifted young analyst at Säpo, Gabriella Grane — you may have heard of her. She pointed out that the concept of loyalty is not as straightforward as one might think for us policemen. We have many different loyalties, don’t we? There’s the obvious one, to the law. There’s a loyalty to the public, and to one’s colleagues, but also to our bosses, and to ourselves and our careers. Sometimes, as all of you know, these interests end up competing with each other. We might choose to protect a colleague at work and thereby fail in our duty to the public, or we might be given orders from higher up, as Hans Faste was, and then that conflicts with the loyalty he should have had to us. But from now on — and I’m deadly serious — there’s only one loyalty I want to hear of, and that is to the investigation itself. We’re going to catch the murderers and we’re going to make sure that no-one else falls victim to them. Agreed? Even if the prime minister himself or the head of the C.I.A. calls and goes on about patriotism and major career opportunities, you still won’t utter a peep, will you?”
“No,” they said, as one.
“Excellent. As we all know, the person who intervened on Sveavägen was none other than Lisbeth Salander, and we’re doing everything in our power to find out where she is.”
“Which is why we’ve got to release her name to the media!” Svensson called out, somewhat heatedly. “We need help from the public.”
“We don’t all agree on this, so I’d like to raise the question again. Let’s remember that in the past Lisbeth Salander has had some very shabby treatment, from us and from the media...”
“At this point that doesn’t matter,” Svensson said.
“And it’s conceivable that people recognized her on Sveavägen and her name will come out at any moment anyway, in which case this would no longer be an issue. But before that happens, bear in mind that she saved the boy’s life.”
“No doubt about that,” Svensson said. “But then she more or less kidnapped him.”
“Our information suggests that she was determined to protect the boy at all costs,” Modig said. “Salander’s experience of public institutions has been anything but positive — her entire childhood was marred by the injustices inflicted on her by Swedish officialdom. If she suspects, as we do, that there’s a leak inside the police force, then there’s no chance she’s going to contact us. Fact.”
“That’s irrelevant,” Svensson insisted.
“Maybe,” Modig said. “Jan and I share your view that the most important thing here is whether it’s in the interests of the investigation to release her name. And as to the investigation, our priority is the boy’s safety, and that’s where we have a big element of uncertainty.”
“I follow your reasoning,” Holmberg said in a low, thoughtful tone which immediately commanded everyone’s attention. “If people know of Salander’s involvement then the boy will be at risk. But that still leaves a number of questions — first: what’s the ethical thing to do? And I have to say, even if there’s been a leak here we cannot accept that Salander should keep the boy hidden away. He’s a crucial part of the investigation and, leak or no leak, we’re better at protecting a child than an emotionally disturbed young woman could ever be.”
“Absolutely. Of course,” Bublanski muttered.
“And even if this isn’t a kidnapping in the ordinary sense — yes, even if it’s been carried out with the best of intentions — the potential harm to the child could be just as great. Psychologically it must be hugely damaging for him to be, as it were, on the run after everything he’s been through.”
“True,” Bublanski said. “But the question still remains: how do we deal with the information we have?”
“There I agree with Curt. We have to release her name and photograph right away. It could produce invaluable leads.”
“Probably,” Bublanski said. “But it could at the same time help the killers. We have to assume that they haven’t given up looking for the boy. Quite the opposite in fact. And since we have no idea what the connection is between the boy and Salander, we don’t know what sort of clues her name would provide them with. I’m not persuaded that we would be protecting the boy by giving the media these details.”
“But neither do we know if we’re protecting him by holding them back,” Holmberg said. “There are too many pieces of the puzzle missing for us to draw any conclusions. Is Salander doing this for someone else, for example? Or does she have her own agenda for the child, apart from to protect him?”
“And how could she have known that Torkel Lindén and the boy would come out onto Sveavägen at that exact moment?” Svensson said.
“Maybe she just happened to be there.”
“Doesn’t seem likely.”